Stage Fright, the Band’s third album, sounded on its surface like the group’s first two releases, Music from Big Pink and The Band, employing the same dense arrangements with their mixture of a deep bottom formed by drummer Levon Helm and bassist Rick Danko, penetrating guitar work by Robbie Robertson, and the varied keyboard work of pianist Richard Manuel and organist Garth Hudson, with Helm, Danko, and Manuel’s vocals on top.Read More

Over the course of his career, Rod Stewart has had it all. He’s been lauded as the finest singer of his generation, he’s written several songs that turned into modern standards, he sang with the Faces, who rivaled the Rolling Stones in their prime, he had massive commercial success. Stewart also saw his critical respect slip away during the ’80s, when he recorded lightweight pop and although he did record some terrible albums — and he would admit that freely — Stewart will always be remembered as one of rock & roll’s best interpretive singersRead More

Reteaming with the Band, Bob Dylan winds up with an album that recalls New Morning more than The Basement Tapes, since Planet Waves is given to a relaxed intimate tone — all the more appropriate for a collection of modest songs about domestic life. As such, it may seem a little anticlimactic since it has none of the wildness of the best Dylan and Band music of the ’60s — just an approximation of the homespun rusticness.Read More

Bob Dylan returned from exile with John Wesley Harding, a quiet, country-tinged album that split dramatically from his previous three. A calm, reflective album, John Wesley Harding strips away all of the wilder tendencies of Dylan’s rock albums — even the then-unreleased Basement Tapes he made the previous year — but it isn’t a return to his folk roots. If anything, the album is his first serious foray into country, but only a handful of songsRead More

Taking the first, electric side of Bringing It All Back Home to its logical conclusion, Bob Dylan hired a full rock & roll band, featuring guitarist Michael Bloomfield, for Highway 61 Revisited. Opening with the epic “Like a Rolling Stone,” Highway 61 Revisited careens through nine songs that range from reflective folk-rock (“Desolation Row”) and blues (“It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry”) to flat-out garage rock (“Tombstone Blues,” “From a Buick 6,” “Highway 61 Revisited”).Read More

Jefferson Airplane was the first of the San Francisco psychedelic rock groups of the 1960s to achieve national recognition. Although the Grateful Dead ultimately proved more long-lived and popular, Jefferson Airplane defined the San Francisco sound in the 1960s, with the acid rock guitar playing of Jorma Kaukonen and the soaring twin vocals of Grace Slick and Marty Balin, scoring hit singles and looking out from the covers of national magazines.Read More

The Beginning of Survival is a whopping 16-track collection from Joni Mitchell’s Geffen period, recorded between 1985-1998, and carefully chosen by the artist as “commentaries on the world in which we live.” One has to wonder about the title: if by saying this is “the beginning of survival,” Mitchell is referring to her own retirement strategy — she is no longer making new records.Read More

One has to wonder why this box, Joni Mitchell’s The Studio Albums 1968-1979, was issued only in the European market. During this period –and some would argue even after — Mitchell had one of most consistent quality runs in pop history. She is one of the most influential songwriters and recording artists of the 20th century. Included here are Song to a Seagull, Clouds, Ladies of the Canyon, Blue, For the Roses, Court and Spark, Hissing of Summer Lawns, Hejira, the double album Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, and Mingus.Read More

A largely forgotten album in the wake of Sarah McLachlan’s mainstream success, Touch was the first album anyone heard from the singer. Only 19 at the time, McLachlan had years to go before she would become the seductive songstress of Fumbling Towards Ecstacy or the sensitive balladeer of Surfacing.Read More

Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead is a live album consisting of audio and video recordings from the Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead concerts performed by surviving members of the Grateful Dead Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart, with Trey Anastasio, Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti. The concerts were recorded on July 3, 4, and 5, 2015, at Soldier Field in Chicago.Read More

Sittin’ In is the first album by singer-songwriters Loggins and Messina, released in 1971. It began as a solo album by Kenny Loggins; Jim Messina was with Columbia Records, serving as an independent producer when he met Loggins. In the course of producing Loggins’ work, Messina provided backing vocals and guitar, leading to the album’s full title, Kenny Loggins with Jim Messina Sittin’ In.Read More